The Noctua NH-D9L is a mid-sized heatsink
suitable for use in 3U height computer chassis where low noise
CPU cooling is desired. It's compact stature makes it ideal for 3U rack
mounted computers in a recording studio, office environment or even book-sized miniITX
cases. The NH-D9L heatsink stands 114mm tall and has a footprint just 95mm
square, ensuring it will not overhang adjacent memory slots on any current
Intel or AMD motherboard, or interfere with PCI Express graphics card
on mini-ITX platforms.

The NH-D9L
heatsink ships with one 92mm Noctua NF-A9 fan sandwiched
between two 33.5mm thick nickel plated aluminum fin towers. An extra set of
wire fan clips is supplied for users who wish to mount a second 92mm
fan (not included) off the front cooling tower; in Frostytech's tests this
brought a ~4°C decrease in temperatures. The stock PWM fan rotates at a fixed
speed of 2000RPM, or with the use a supplied fan speed resister,
1550RPM.

The heatsink itself is built around four 6mm
diameter copper heatpipes (wick structure undisclosed) which are soldered to two
separate stacks of nickel plated aluminum fins and a copper
heatspreader for low thermal joint resistance and long term
stability. Soldering dozens of heatsink fins to heatpipes can
be a tricky manufacturing step to get right, so most entry level cooler
makers don't do it. Another Noctua hallmark is the
use of a 5mm thick copper heatspreader in place of exposed heatpipes;
apparently this approach evens out temperature gradients inherent in multi-core processor designs which
can potentially localize heat to one to two heatpipes in an exposed heatpipe heatsink
design.

Noctua's NH-D9L heatsink is rated for heat loads up to 140W TDP and
installs onto AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 and Intel LGA2011-0/LGA2011-3/115x
processors. The NH-D9L is covered by a 6-year warranty and the SSO2 bearing
based NF-A9 fan is rated for 150K hours MTBF. The Noctua NH-D9L
heatsink retails for about $75USD/CDN at NCIX.com, the manufacturer even provides an Intel
LGA775/1366 NM-13 mounting kit free of charge, if you're looking at a legacy
application.

Noctua state: "Owners of Noctua CPU coolers can obtain
the Noctua NM-AM4 SecuFirm2 Mounting-Kit free of charge via this form. A proof of purchase (electronic
version, photo or scan of the invoice) of both a Noctua CPU cooler
and either a socket AM4 mainboard or socket AM4 CPU are required. There is a dedicated
upgrade kit (NM-AM4-UxS) available for NH-U14S, NH-U12S and NH-U9S"

For more details, heatsink exceptions and
a complete list of incompatible coolers, see here.

The cooler ships with a single
92mm NF-A9 fan that spins at 2000RPM and moves up to 78.9 cubic meters of air
per hour, at 2.28mmH2O static pressure, according to manufacturer specs. All
eight corners of the fan are protected with vibration absorbing pads so the fan
can be mounted to any surface without the chance of creating errant noises.

Also included is a NA-RC7 wire fan speed reducer (a 51Ohms resistor on
the 12V+ PWM wire) that drops fan speed to 1500RPM for situations where much
quieter operation is desired.

With the central fan removed we get a better sense of just how small the
Noctua NH-D9L heatsink is: 114x95x95mm! Noctua have added a couple elastomeric
strips along the internal edge where the fan makes contact, because the aluminum
cooling towers are only 67mm tall and the stock vibration absorbing pads on
the NF-A9 fan are spaced 65mm apart!

Testing the Noctua NH-D9L heatsink with two fans

For this review Frostytech will be also test the Noctua NH-D9L heatsink on
our synthetic thermal test platforms with a second NF-A9 fan mounted
to the front aluminum cooling tower. This increases the heatsink dimensions to
114x95x122mm and improves airflow through the heatsink.

(second fan not included)

(second not included)

Heatsink Mounting Hardware

Noctua's NH-D9L heatsink is compatible with Intel socket
LGA2011-0/2011-3/115x and AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 processors. Small metal
tabs are attached to the heatsink base, a
metal backplate positioned behind the motherboard, then everything fixed
in place with two spring-tensioned screws. The installation process is straight forward
and access is generally easy with the center fan popped
out. This heatsink uses Noctua's SecuFirm 2 mounting system and is backwards compatible
with the NM-I3 mounting kit.

A multi-language manual is provided along with two extra fan clips, a screwdriver, Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound and NA-RC7 wire fan speed reducer.

FrostyTech's Test Methodologies are outlined in detail
here if you care to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under
which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at
this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course its performance in
the thermal tests!